[x]

How are Merge/Bovada legal in the U.S. right now?

Reply to Thread
Page 1 of 11
  1. TILTOHOLIC TILTOHOLIC is offline

    San Diego, CA
    United States

    Posts: 89
    Joined: Nov 09

    Jul 31st, 2012 (7/31/2012 11:10pm)

    I'm confused how these sites can operate in the U.S.

    Can someone explain how Merge and Bovada can operate but pokerstars has to wait for legalization?
  2. wackyJaxon wackyJaxon is offline Admin X

    Vilnius
    Lithuania

    Posts: 14,777
    Joined: Apr 06

    Jul 31st, 2012 (7/31/2012 11:17pm) in reply to TILTOHOLIC

    When pokerstars got caught with their pants down on Black Friday they decided to abide by the UIEGA and not get caught in any grey area until such time there is specific regulation that allows them to operate in the US and they receive a license. This may never occur for PokerStars, but I feel there is some hope with the recent announcement today about the deal between the DOJ, PokerStars, and FTP.

    Bovada, Merge, and a couple of other networks choose to operate in this grey area and continue to ignore the UIEGA. This is a business decision for them as they probably would be too tiny to be able to continue to operate otherwise. Due to the grey area here, however, PocketFives does not allow any rake based site that accepts US customers to promote themselves on PocketFives. PocketFives feels there is a great risk for the customers of these sites to be playing there. Personally I do understand why people in the US continue to play on those sites, since it is the only game in town. Hopefully the people that do play there understand the risks involved and are not keeping money they can't afford to lose or be indefinitely locked up.
      1 
  3. boneralert boneralert is offline

    Portland, OR
    United States

    Posts: 1,153
    Joined: Jan 11

    Jul 31st, 2012 (7/31/2012 11:20pm) in reply to wackyJaxon

    Being legal =/= being able to operate.

    FTP and stars were able to operate from 2006- April 2011 even though they weren't necessarily legal, at least regarding their methods of providing processing of deposits/withdrawals.

    The sites currently operating in the US are taking a risk that they will get into trouble with the DOJ or other authorities, and the players who play on these sites are exposed to some of that risk as well.
     
  4. bwalz bwalz is offline

    CA
    United States

    Posts: 367
    Joined: Nov 10

    Jul 31st, 2012 (7/31/2012 11:28pm) in reply to boneralert

    I'm quite curious how the current US serving cash sites will react to this.. I'm thinking either they get their act together or the bs we have seen from merge, bovada and revolution is just the beginning of it. Their time is running out jacking US players around, and we're the vast majority of the traffic if I had to guess. Row players won't anything to do with them if they continue to operate how they have been and they lose the US traffic. They're obviously close to being done in America, @ least in a few states soon here.
    Edited By: bwalz Jul 31st, 2012 at 11:29 PM
Reply to Thread
Page 1 of 11